Earlier that day I had been flying around with Scoots and it took me maybe ten minutes to get to a far off mountain. I use to go pretty slow with passengers, but over the last few months with Scoots I was gaining experience in not throwing passengers off on accident. You see, Scoots isn’t one to sit back and just enjoy the ride, probably one of the many reasons we’re so close. She always wants to go faster, even though she’s not the one flying.
Two passengers however, one, Dusk, concentrating more on crying than hanging on to boot, that’s another story. I think it took me a full twenty or more minutes just to get to the mountains of Canterlot. (Yes I’ve taken the train there before, but that’s because my friends were coming and I didn’t want to just race on ahead of them.)
The closer I got to Torkuda’s cave, I started to get a sinking feeling in my stomach. Did I really want to leave my daughter with a dragon? Yes I knew Torkuda and yes I knew he wasn’t evil, but well, he’s still a dragon. Yea, yea, call me racist, but what was I supposed to be thinking getting ready to leave my daughter with a creature so massive his eye was two times the size of my whole body? At least I knew Scoots was safe from that… thing that appeared earlier.
I touched down and put down Scootaloo. Dusk was still crying into my mane, and Scootaloo had to help him off my back. Shortly after is when I finally looked into Dusk’s eyes. The emotions that washed over me… I had to sit down. He looked so scared. Tears were streaming out of his now almost blood shot eyes, his mane was scattered and… yea it took about ten seconds for him to collapse on the ground crying.
Scootaloo stood over him, hugging his neck and doing her best to comfort him. I forced myself to walk further into the cave. I knew I just I had to get Torkuda and leave, but I wanted to help. The further away I got, it was almost like Dusk’s sobs got louder.
I heard a series of crashes and then saw the form of Torkuda pass right over me. His massive green head was suddenly over his crying adopted son, myself standing, feeling like an ant, under his massive yellow underbelly. “Dusk, what’s wrong?” he asked. I flew back over to the foals.
The colt slowly sat up, Scootaloo still having a foreleg around his shoulders. “Lightning… he… the scientist guy… Doctor Gray, he’s back.”
“What?!” came a slightly tempered angry reply.
“Doctor Gray, the bad pony, the pony who-“
“The stallion who hurt you?” Torkuda asked.
“Yes,” Dusk replied.
The dragon growled, a huge clawed hand going around Scootaloo and Dusk, Torkuda looking left and right outside the cave.
“I doubt he followed us,” I spoke up.
“Lightning? Where is she?” he asked.
“When he- Doctor Gray I guess- attacked, he broke Lightning’s right wing, basically to make threat I guess-“ Torkuda growled and stomped with his back leg, shaking ground I stood on. I was so glad he was on my side. “She’s at the clinic. I thought it best to get your son safely back to you.”
“Who’s watching her?”
“Fluttershy and Vinyl right now,” I started.
“What?!” the dragon demanded. “That’s all? Are you all taking this seriously? A timid mare who can barely fly and a DJ?”
“We’re not a military town Torkuda. Twilight is trying to find answers on what happened in the library and my other friends are trying to find the monster- the doctor. Even for us, this was a very unusual attack."
Torkuda slowly lifted the hand covering Scootaloo and Dusk. “What is she doing here?” he asked, not pointing, but obviously referring to Scootaloo.
“She’s um… my daughter and I um… I’m… REALLY scared. I just- I’ve never seen anything attack a filly like that and… I don’t know why, but I keep thinking about him… doing what he did to your daughter to my daughter and… I had to get her out of there.” Torkuda looked back at me. “I know she’ll be safe with you-“
“Am I supposed to take the high road? You leave my daughter injured in a small clinic with not but the protection of a disabled musician and a slow timid mare and you expect to earn the protection of a dragon for your own daughter?” he started to glare.
“HEY!” Scootaloo demanded. “Fluttershy is a lot more powerful than you think. She’s stared down a cockatrice!”
“I think I picked one of those out from under my back claw yesterday… then again I suppose that’s a feat for a pony all the same,” the dragon replied. “Perhaps that was a… respectable choice. I haven’t heard much good about Fluttershy’s abilities, most think of her as the weakest of your group-“
“Yea well… that’s probably…well-“ could I really say it? There were times when I thought about it, but I never wanted to say it. “…Me.” Yes, I had noticed. Twilight and Pinkie both had amazing magic, Rarity could probably levitate a whole house at someone if she wanted, Fluttershy had that stare ability, and AJ had a surprising abilities despite not having much too just look at. My abilities were all on the surface. I was fast, that was pretty much it. I didn’t think like that often, but right now, the image of that thing attacking Scootaloo kept flying through my head and it was making me feel so helpless.
“Are you not the same mare who came to my home, treated me with disdain and tried to take my children away?” asked Torkuda.
“Um… about that…” oh yea, I did do that. I had seen Lightning about a week after I had just adopted Scootaloo. I guess I was starting to get it in my head that day that I needed to be on a crusade to save all potential abuse victims. Just so happened that Lightning Strike showed up in Ponyville with a broken shoulder and I assumed the worst. I found out her father was a dragon and I assumed worse than that. Talk about shame. I stormed into Torkuda’s home, treating him like a criminal and tried to convince him to give up his children. Had Vinyl not been there, I might have succeeded too. My behavior was childish even if my heart was in the right place. “I’m really sorry.” I hung my head. “I offer no excuse.”
Torkuda looked back at Dusk and Scootaloo. Scootaloo was still trying to comfort her little friend. The dragon looked back at me and his expression seemed to soften. “My son will need the company while he worries about his sister. It would be best if it were someone who could hug him without crushing him.” He glared at me again. “You do NOT assume the worst of individuals you don’t even know. I would never hurt my children-“
“I said I was sorry and I am so very sorry.” I looked at Scootaloo. “I can’t imagine how I would feel if someone did to me what I did to you. I mean, I came to you and pointed out your size and species, saying you couldn’t be a good parent. Imagine if someone had pointed out my lack of maturity or experience or knowledge or real qualifications I just-“ I sighed. “I would have been in the same position you were, unable to defend myself.” I looked up at him again. “Please forgive me?”
“I will not become a protector for the children of Ponyville.”
“Just Scoots…”
The dragon looked back at the foals. He sighed. “Your request is granted. I will protect her.”
“Just like that? Do you forgive me?”
“What were you expecting? A trial?” he asked back. I shook my head. Honestly I didn’t know what I expected. I turned slowly to leave. "As for forgiveness, you need to convince me you have changed." Torkuda then grunted. I stopped. “Bring my daughter back to me.”
“Or what will happen to Scoots?” I asked, gulping.
I turned to look at the dragon whose glare could have turned me to stone. “You’ve learned nothing haven’t you? I’m protecting your daughter, not holding her hostage.” His expression softened again. “It’s just… I can’t simply go to Ponyville. Your fear of dragons isn’t exactly a minority opinion as I’m sure you’re aware. I would set the entire city into a panic merely showing up. My daughter is hurt. I’m scared for her but I can’t go to her.” Torkuda turned his hand over and the two foals crawled into it. He walked away holding them up saying, “Separated from those you love when you fear for them, looks like you’re about to get a taste of what that’s like.”
A lump stayed in my throat as he walked away. I had never felt like this before. I could stand being away from Scootaloo easily, but not now. Even knowing she was probably safer here, she was scared, confused and having to protect a friend of her own, it just felt like it should have been natural for me to stick around with her.
However, I had to look over Lightning. Twilight’s orders weren’t really all that important to me in this instance, but really, if I abandoned Lightning, what would Scootaloo think of me?
I shook my head. What was I thinking? I couldn’t leave Lightning because she was an injured filly who had been attacked right in front of me, that should have pissed me off all on its own. I took off back into the sky, trying to make that my primary thought. Back in Ponyville there was a filly who looked up to me and needed me… there was also one in a cave… no! Lightning was important too damn it!
(***)
I raced back to Ponyville, but decided to slow down as I approached the clinic, no need to cause a panic zooming in like mad. As I was about to walk in the front door of the clinic, two violet eyes met mine. “Hi Rainbow,” came a monotone voice.
I gave a nervous grin. “Hi Twi.
“Ya know, sometimes I wonder why I even bother giving you orders. In a pinch you follow, but most of the time one wouldn’t know you somehow got into a military academy and passed.”
“Sorry. Look, the way I saw it-“
“My orders were completely incompetent?”
“Well no. I mean interviewing Lightning before going to the library might have been-“
“Oh yes Rainbow Dash, why don’t you interview a little girl just seconds after she’s been injured and traumatized? Not only is that ethically questionable, but she’s in a panic, information I get from her has just as much chance of being false as true.”
“Not saying a long interview, but at least she could give us a place to start,” I pointed out. “In any case, you put us in charge of three fillies and a musician, one of those fillies injured and likely a target of the enemy. I just realized the odds weren’t exactly in our favor of not being attacked and if we were well… we weren’t right, please tell me there wasn’t another attack.”
“If there was?” Twilight asked.
“Well Flutters has got that stare thing.”
“Yes, that’s why I put her on guard duty. However that “stare thing” is still a mystery to everypony. Best I can tell it attacks a creature’s conscience. A guy who’s so wacko he breaks a filly’s wing just to get attention… I’m not all that confident the stare will work. I needed you there so you could come get me.”
“And I had to make sure my daughter was safe.”
“She wasn’t attacked Rainbow. Lightning Strike was.”
“Doesn’t mean Scoots and Dusk wouldn’t have made good hostages.”
“Yea, Dusk, that’s another thing. Please tell me you didn’t knowingly trigger a little girl’s phobia,” Twilight continued.
“Hey I worked with that best I could.”
“She’s panicking like a rabbit in a fox den in there!” Twilight almost shouted.
“Really?” I asked cringing.
“Vinyl and Fluttershy have been able to reign her in for the most part. Look, you and I are going to talk about this more later…" she paused, obviously having to think. "Mostly because I’m not sure if I agree with you-“
“Go easy on yourself. None of us have ever seen something like this before. I mean we’ve seen violence, but nothing that brutal.” I tried to point out.
“Actually, it was a mental projection, but I saw my Celestia shot down by her own sister." Twilight shook her head. “Like I said, we’re going to talk later. In the meantime, we’re going to have to just sit out here and wait.”
“Why?”
“Like I said, Vinyl and Fluttershy have just barely managed to reign in Lightning, you walk in there and she’s going to go nuts. After all, you’re the one she’s waiting to hear from. The doctors are putting her wing in a cast right now. She might struggle if she sees you.”
“Why didn’t the doctors just knock her out?” I asked.
“Apparently she metabolizes sedatives.” No I’m not an idiot… still, those were some words even my Daring Do novels never used. I looked at her cross eyed. “Bluntly, sleeping drugs don’t work on her. The operation is painful enough without her fighting to get to you.”
Okay, I had to pause on that note. I had been in the hospital a few times, happens when you pull stunts all the time. However, I liked being asleep when the doctors operated. Envy that little filly, I did not.
It was really only a few minutes before someone came and told us Lightning was in her cast. I walked into her room with Twilight. At the moment she was talking to Fluttershy about… the nature of bears I think. Lightning didn’t notice us, which gave me a few seconds to really look at her. Her fur was matted, eyes blood shot and she kept wincing every time she accidentally moved her wing. I felt so much sympathy for her, not only as she was just a kid, but I SO knew what that was like. I did my best not to wince a bunch in the hospital when my wing broke, doesn’t mean the pain wasn’t there. Course she looked way worse than me. Probably because of panicking and not being put under like I was. Come to think of it, “So they tell me you didn’t have any drugs. That’s pretty tough,” I announced.
Her head turned to me and her eyes lit up. “Rebel Rainbow!” she shouted her nick name for me. She then jumped up out of the bed and scampered over to me, jumping onto my chest and giving me a rather unexpected hug. I was about to hug her back, for lack of knowing what else to do, when she started screaming and hit the floor cradling her wing. “Owww...” she breathed deep. “Owwww!” With a grimace Vinyl walked over and used her telekinesis to gently lift the filly off the floor and put her back on the bed. The girl hissed and whimpered a few times, slowly putting her wing on a pillow that Flutters quickly put next to her. “Dusty?” Lightning asked.
“He’s with your father, he’s safe.”
“How do I know you didn’t just take him to your home?” she asked.
“Um… c’mon, it’s me, Rebel Rainbow, would I lie to you?”
“Well, you’re a rebel so um…” she started.
And I was reminded why I actually didn’t like that name. “And I protect all the fillies and colts of Equestria, like the Trixie bard told you, remember?” Lightning had originally heard about me from a traveling bard, a mutual acquaintance you could say. Still I was reaching with that reference and I knew it.
“I guess.”
Twilight interrupted. “Um Lightning, is it alright if us grown-ups go talk outside?”
“Um… well… can Rainbow stay in here?” she asked.
‘Why her?’ Vinyl wrote.
“I don’t know… just… she was the last to see Dusk so… please?” she asked.
Twilight sighed a little, but said, “Alright.” She and Vinyl then left me alone with Lightning.
Lightning laid on her bed, her wing bandaged up and a forlorn expression on her face. She rested her head on her forelegs and looked at the ground. “Um… what do you need from me?” I asked.
“I don’t know, I just… I just need you to stay.” She said. “Dusty is okay right?”
“He was when I left,” I replied. “He has your dad and Scootaloo, I’m pretty sure nothing can touch him right now.” There was a pause as Lightning just stared at the ground.
Finally she spoke up again. “Why am I like this?”
“Like what?” I asked back.
“I know he’s okay, I know it, but I’m still worried. Worse yet, I’m worried this worrying will make him not like me anymore and that makes me worry more. He doesn’t seem to mind now but, soon enough…”
“Why are you talking to me about this?”
“I don’t know,” she said, obviously exasperated. “I should be talking to Vinyl, but for some reason I’m talking to you.”
“Well what are you wanting me to do?”
“Listen?”
I sat down, figuring, after triggering her phobia, I owed her this much at least. I gave the warmest smile I could manage at the moment (I had a lot on my mind). “Okay.”
“I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do. I mean, you would think it would be fun having your best friend be your brother and it is but… what’s wrong with me? I can’t go ten feet from him without starting to worry about him. And then I’m so worried he’ll start to hate me for being so… so…”
I risked inserting the word for her. “Overbearing?”
“Yea.”
I looked at her curiously. “You’re just a little kid. You know there’s something wrong with you?”
“Well I am going to therapy… but even before that, I knew. I mean, I am me, of course I know there’s something wrong with me.” She then chuckled. “Speaking as one, little kids don’t like being called little kids, just so you know.”
“Sorry.”
“Thing is… what am I supposed to do? I’m getting help. But what it really feels like, is that I should just get over it. Like all I really need to do is stop worrying, but I just can’t do it.” She sighed. “That thing that attacked me, it’s called Dr. Gray. He hurt me and Dusk. Well more me really, he just threatened Dusk to keep me from fighting back. Guess that’s why I worry all the time. But still, why can’t I stop, even when I know Dusty is fine? Why do I worry about someone who’s not really in danger?” She looked at the wall. “I shouldn’t be like this. No pony else worries like this, so why do I?”
I nodded and walked over to her. I’m no genius when it comes to emotional matters, but at least I can read the writing on the wall. “Hey now, I mean, you do have issues, and you are dealing with them, but just for a minute, why don’t you listen to me and my problems? Maybe you’ll notice something.” Lightning shrugged and looked back at me. “Alright. I have a confession to make. When you were attacked on stage, don’t take this the wrong way, but I really wasn’t all that worried about you.”
“Um… I’m not… as tough as I look?”
“It’s not that you look tough, I mean, you really don’t.” Truer words and all. Lightning always looked a little off. Skinny, freckles on only one side of her face, the front of her mane arranged sporadically and the back looking like a jagged lightning bolt coming out of the back of her neck, she was childhood in a nutshell I suppose, total chaos. I guess it’s rude to say, but this all sounds cute, but at a certain angle, Lightning looked like an abuse victim… which apparently she was so…
“Um… thanks?”
“That’s not the point. I sympathized with you, but I was only worried about one pony. Scootaloo.”
Lightning seemed to have to think for a minute. “Why? I mean, she was in the crowd so… that doesn’t make any sense.”
“Does it?” I asked back. “I’m her mom now Lightning. I know her pretty well. Sometimes it feels like my whole life revolves around her and at times, it probably does. I’m not even sure what I would do if something were to happen…” I swallowed, for some reason I couldn’t finish that statement. “I guess when that all happened, I didn’t understand what was happening in my head. My thoughts just kept going to Scootaloo when I looked at you. What if someone attacked her like that? What if they broke her wing, what if they made her that scared, what if she couldn’t fight back, what if I wasn’t there to save her, what if… I don’t know, so many thoughts raced through my mind.” I nodded at Lightning’s confusion. “I know. Scootaloo was in a crowd of ponies standing right next to me, YOU were being attacked, not her.”
“So why were you afraid for her and not me?” she asked.
“Nothing against you, but I don’t really know you that well. I mean I’m sure you’re an okay kid, fantastic maybe, but I’ve only briefly met you a few times before and that’s only because Scoots is your friend. You’re cute, but I don’t care about you like that.” She twisted her neck looking at me. “Again, nothing against you. But you see, Scootaloo is my daughter, and before she was, she was my sister and before that… I don’t think I really realized it, but I think she was one of the best friends I’ve ever had. She always looked up to me, she always wanted to be with me, she made a fan club for me, had posters of me, heck she apparently ripped up a collector’s wonderbolt action figure to remake it to look like me.” I chuckled. “She loved me before I loved her.” Lightning appeared to be pondering what I was saying. “You see kid, there wasn't anything wrong with me... at least, I don't think there was." I had to pause on that note. But I decided if I needed a little therapy myself, probably best not to try to get it from an eight year old. Best to keep going on the note I was on. "Everyone worries about the ponies they love. It rarely takes much to trigger it either, let alone what happened today. It’s because of everything they mean to us. I mean, tell me about Dusk. Why is he important to you?”
“Well… he’s always been there for me, even back when no one else would even come near me. My powers used to scare other ponies silly, but not him, he would just walk right up to me to play, or to hug me. He’s always been quiet, always listening when I talk, always smiling at me. He’s told me I’m the most awesome pony ever, and he argues when I laugh at that. I cry, he comes running, I’m happy he’s there- I can’t-” she gritted her teeth. “I can’t even try to know what I would do without him. I love him. He’s my friend, my best friend. Scootaloo and everyone else is just nice to me, but Dusty is just… different.”
“AJ, Twilight, Fluttershy, they’re all really good friends and all, but something is just different about Scoots. I’m the most awesome thing she sees and I don’t think she’s ever thought less of me, no matter how much I’m pretty sure I deserve it sometimes. I know that things won’t always be that perfect, but I just… I don’t know. I love her. So, when there’s danger I’m afraid more for her than for anything else, even myself.”
Lightning gave a kind of half chuckle. She looked at her wing. “Well I think it’s pretty obvious I care more for him than myself, he’s at home sitting pretty and here I am with broken bones and I’m still worried about him.”
“Actually Lightning, he’s not sitting pretty. He’s a wreck. Let me remind you, he loves you too. You’re siblings, that’s how it’s supposed to be.”
“We’re not really siblings, we’re adopted.”
I raised an eyebrow. "You trying to say Scootaloo isn't really my daughter? She's adopted. Point is, I don’t think you’re that strange, you just have issues. You’ll get over them. I mean- well look at you, you’re sitting there having a pity party with me about our loved ones right after sitting through your own wing being put in a cast without any sedatives. You’re almost acting like it didn’t happen. You’re tough. I’m pretty sure you’re gonna get past these issues.”
“You think?”
“I have a sense of these things. Call it my Rainbow sense.” I winked at her.
“Your what?” Lightning said laughing. “That was horrible.”
“Yea it was wasn’t it? Don’t tell Pinkie I said it either.” Lightning put her head down, continuing to chuckle.
Just in time, Twilight and Vinyl walked back in. Vinyl looked at me, her notepad in the air. ‘I could hear you. Thanks for helping her.’ She wrote. I smiled.
Twilight cleared her throat. “I hate to do this,” she said. “But Vinyl and I have reached a decision. Lighting,” she looked into the filly’s eyes. “We need you to tell us about Dr. Gray. Leave nothing out, we’ve got all day.”
Lightning pulled her head back and gave a scared piteous look. Looking at her, there was no doubt, I was finally worried just about her.